


If I Fold a Thousand Cranes

by PenguinTrippin



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Gen, Grief, TIL that i have no clue how to write happy fics, could be interpreted as brotherly or as hidashi i have no idea, i mean they're really damn close in canon, so sad fics it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 04:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinTrippin/pseuds/PenguinTrippin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants Tadashi back so badly it hurts; the grief threatens to strangle him some days, when it claws its way around his windpipe, snaking around and squeezing almost tenderly, lovingly, as he chokes out dry, wrenching sobs, wheezing for air. </p><p>Hiro folds crane after crane, and while he knows, deep down, that the chances of a thousand cranes granting him his wish are virtually non-existent, it can't hurt to try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Fold a Thousand Cranes

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the legend of the 1000 cranes. Also tried tying in the idea behind the 5 stages of grief loosely - not sure how obvious it is though. Have fun following Hiro through his grief!
> 
> (and my shitty use of tenses goddamn i'm sorry they're all over the place)

_His first crane is an awkward clumsy little thing. Its head is definitely too large to be normal, and the tail refuses to stand up straight, choosing to droop limply behind the too-flat body that just would not plump up. He furtively stows it away a drawer – it’s just a stupid little project that he might not even go through with, he thinks. No one has to know._

“’Dashi?”

“Hmmm?” Tadashi half-turned his body towards his six-year old brother who had wandered next to him, all wide eyes and curiosity as he latched onto his desk, peering over the side. 

“What is that?”

Tadashi looked down at the neat folds of paper in his hands, before chuckling lightly. “Oh, this?” He placed the sheet into Hiro’s expectant hands, letting the kid turn it around and around, folding and unfolding along the creases. “I’m making paper cranes.”

Hiro looked up at him. “Err, why?”

Tadashi smiled. “Ever heard of the Thousand Crane Legend?”

“The what?”

“Thousand Crane Legend. It’s an old Japanese legend that said that if you fold one thousand paper cranes, a crane would grant you one single wish.”

Hiro furrowed his brow. “That’s an awful lot of work to get one measly wish.”

Tadashi snorted. Of course he would think that. “Yeah, but it could be any wish you wanted! Imagine if you wished for a lifetime supply of gummy bears, or a pet dinosaur to ride to school.”

“Gummy bears!” Hiro threw his thin spindly arms up, grinning toothily, revealing a small gap between his two front teeth. Tadashi couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

Reaching down to grab Hiro by the armpits, Tadashi lifted his tiny little brother up onto his lap. “Want to learn how to make paper cranes?”

Hiro blinked up at him – _oh god, it’s so endearing_ – before shifting around in Tadashi’s arms, eagerly drawing the stack of papers on Tadashi’s desk towards himself. “Yes!” he announced, plopping down between his brother’s legs.

Half an hour later, Tadashi found keeping his laughter internal a more and more trying task as it turned out his genius little brother was thoroughly incompetent at making folds in a sheet of paper. Hiro’s unnaturally large pout is what finally set him off, and when Hiro attempted to scold him for it, large bemused eyes and all, Tadashi threw his head back and laughed heartily.

Later, when he tucked Hiro into his bed – Hiro loudly and adamantly expressing his refusal for a good part of the evening, of course – smiling fondly down at the tiny form of his little brother, he realized that maybe, he didn’t need his wish. Hiro was his life now, and while he missed his parents, he couldn’t afford to abandon Hiro now to chase wistful dreams and wishes. He was a big brother, and he needed to own up to the title he bore.

With finality, Tadashi scrunched up his paper crane and tossed it into the trash.

_His three hundred and sixty-third crane is somewhat dilapidated, with crinkled edges, an ugly wrinkly splotch from an angry tear that had somehow made it past his cheek, and a speck of blood on its wing. He had slammed the paper on the table, going through the long since memorized motions with little care for precision. Maybe the crane sensed it, he thinks afterwards, as it cut him viciously in the finger after a particularly aggressive wrench at the paper. This wouldn’t have happened – he wouldn’t be sitting there for hours on end, folding stupid beat-up cranes that he was just so bad at making, sucking at a particularly nasty paper cut – if Tadashi and his idiotic, well-meaning, sense of righteousness –_

_Hiro chokes back another sob._

Tadashi tugged Hiro into their shared room, grip tight around his wrist. Hiro couldn’t see his face, but he didn’t have to to know that his brother’s lips were set in a tight unforgiving line, and his jaw was twitching as it did every time he struggled to contain the simmering and bubbling rage that threatened to boil over.

Hiro wasn’t sure if it was working.

Once safely inside the room, Tadashi let go abruptly and whirled around. Lo and behold, there go his lips and jaw. His eyebrows were so tight knit that Hiro began to wonder if they would ever come apart. _That’s never a good sign_ , he thought.

“What. Were. You. _Thinking_?” his brother hissed, as he grabbed his worn San Fransokyo Ninjas hat – that _Hiro_ had bought for him, no less – and tossed it haphazardly behind him. Hiro crossed his arms in front of himself, watching huffily as the hat disappeared behind the oak dresser. 

Hiro glared sullenly at the ground. He refused to answer, preferring to stew silently in his anger.

“Hiro, what’s going on? This is the third time you’ve gone bot-fighting this week. _The third time!_ Do you have any idea how dangerous it is, especially for a 10-year-old?” Shuffling noises – Tadashi crossing his arms across his chest, most probably. “I can’t keep coming to save you; there’s going to be a day that I can’t handle all the thugs they send after you, or a day where I make it there a moment too late. This is a bigger problem than potentially getting yourself arrested, which in and of itself is huge deal as it is! You realize this, right?”

Hiro huffed.

There was a brief silence. 

“Fine.” The iciness in his brother’s voice was distinctly palpable. “If you want to get yourself killed that desperately, that’s fine by me.”

Hiro flinched at the frosty words. He felt his rage bubble dangerously and threaten to overwhelm all common sense, and he unlocked himself from his defensive stance. “You,” Hiro seethed, gritting his teeth. “ _You have no idea!_ ”

“Oh?” Tadashi raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “What do I have no idea about then?”

“You have no idea why I go bot-fighting do you?” 

“No, but it doesn’t matter!” Tadashi retorted. “It sure as hell doesn’t matter when it means my brother is constantly intentionally putting himself in harms’ way!”

“Yes, _it does matter_!” Hiro exploded. He clenched his fists by his side, nails digging hard into the soft flesh of his palms. He was so far gone he could see nothing in front of him except red and Tadashi’s stupid, uncomprehending face. “You think I don’t know, but it’s obvious! We’re running low on money, aren’t we?” Tadashi made a dissenting sound, but Hiro cut him off. “No, don’t – you can’t deny this! I can see Aunt Cass running herself into the ground with the café, I know you disappear off for ages to juggle part-time jobs on top of school, _I know we can barely afford food and rent!_ ”

Tadashi was stunned into silence, his arms hanging limply by his sides. _Good,_ Hiro thought viciously.

“Who do you think left that stack of bills in the tip jar so Aunt Cass could finally replace that rickety old stove? And, and I bet you thought that robot part you’ve been wanting for ages just _randomly_ landed itself on our doorstep, am I right?” Hiro vaguely noticed that he was shaking, and his nails were beginning to cut so deep into his palms that they stung. “I hate seeing the bags under your eyes, I hate feeling so _useless_ –”

Taking wide strides across the room, Tadashi wrapped his arms around Hiro, pressing his cheek into the mess of soft black locks. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “You’re right, I had no idea.”

Hiro buries his face into his brother’s chest, anger suddenly washed away like a breath of fresh air. “’m sorry too, ‘Dashi,” he mumbled against the soft fabric of Tadashi’s cardigan. Tadashi’s warmth was kind and familiar, his arms a gentle weight against his waist and head. He could catch the faint scent of herbal tea and croissants that was so quintessentially Tadashi, and he finally let himself relax into his brother’s embrace.

“Maybe, we can make a compromise, okay?” his brother’s voice was soft, a gentle presence next to his ear. “You can go bot-fighting, but you have to bring me with you whenever you go. Also, maybe we can limit the bot-fights to once a week, and the rest of the time you can help Aunt Cass in the café. Sound good, buddy?”

“Okay.” Hiro nodded against Tadashi’s chest.

He didn’t need to look up to know his brother was smiling down at him.

_His four hundred and seventy-second to his six hundred and forty-ninth are made in rapid succession. He no longer cares if they’re not perfect, if their wings hang limply by their sides and their heads are not folded down. He needs to finish them, he needs to finish so he can have his wish. He wants Tadashi back so badly it hurts; the grief threatens to strangle him some days, when it claws its way around his windpipe, snaking around and squeezing almost tenderly, lovingly, as he chokes out dry, wrenching sobs, wheezing for air._

“Tadashi.”

“No.”

“Tadashiiiii.”

“No.”

“Taadaaaashhhiiiiiiii –”

“Hiro, no means no.” Tadashi sighed, spinning around in his chair to glare half-heartedly at his little brother.

“But Tadashiiii!” Hiro whined, pulling a pathetic pout. “Why not?”

“Hiro, we are _not_ installing rocket boots on Mochi.”

“But I’ve already made the blueprints and everything, look!” Hiro shook out a messy stack of papers, waving them in front of his brother’s face. Tadashi batted the papers away, sighing long-sufferingly. 

“Nuh-uh. Not on my watch.”

Hiro pouted again. Tadashi watched as his expression slowly cleared up, however, and suddenly Hiro was bounding away from him back to his side of the room, chirping out an, “Oh, okay then!” 

Tadashi was feeling a distinct sense of foreboding well up, but against his better judgment, he repressed the feeling and turned back to his college applications. He could have just imagined it, and Hiro leaving him be for a couple hours would be a godsend with the sheer volume of work waiting for him.

He definitely regretted it though when he was rudely awakened at the ungodly hour of 4:15 in the morning by an angry furry ball of fluff colliding with his face, all hisses and – oh no, those were definitely tiny rocket boots that were spurting out bursts of flame that were _far too close to his body_ – all while his little brother cackled in the background, not sounding remorseful by any means.

“You never said I couldn’t make the boots while I’m not on your watch!”

 _His eight-hundred and thirty-fifth crane is folded behind tightly sealed doors. He’s thankful that he has his (Tadashi’s) own lab, and he pours his entire time and soul into folding the small, delicate cranes behind his fogged windows, away from prying looks. He doesn’t know what he would do if he didn’t focus on perfecting the cranes, doesn’t want to think about how easily his weak, cracking walls would shatter if he stopped. He simultaneously sees and doesn’t see Honey Lemon’s concerned glances and Wasabi’s not-so-subtle attempts to pull him out of the lab. He knows his_ (Tadashi's) _friends are worried, he knows they whisper behind his back._

_He finds he doesn’t care._

Hiro threw himself into the room the moment he arrived home, tossing himself onto his bed face-first and dragging his pillow of his head. He heard Tadashi step in behind him, closing the door softly after him.

“Hey …” Hiro felt his bed dip near his waist.

He didn’t move.

The moment he felt the pillow lift off his head, he whined, tugging it back to envelop his world back in black. He heard a sigh somewhere above him, and felt Tadashi’s large hand move to rub small circles into his back instead.

“Come on, tell me what’s going on.”

Hiro shook his head from under his pillow. It was embarrassing – how could he possibly tell his brother that even after all his efforts while he was still in high school with Hiro that his young age and his small stature were still getting himself pushed into lockers and shoved down in packed hallways?

“Are they still bothering you at school?”

Hiro stiffened. Damn Tadashi, being shrewd as always.

There was a brief pause as Tadashi shifted down to crouch by the bedside instead. “Hey, look at me.” 

Hiro’s only response was to tug the pillow even tighter against his skull.

Tadashi reached over, pulling one of Hiro’s small hands away slowly, rubbing the back of his hand tenderly with his own larger, calloused ones. They sit like that in silence for a few heartbeats.

Tadashi’s deep voice broke the quiet first. “Do you want to see something?”

Hiro perked up at that, peeking out from under the pillow. Damn his innate curiosity, but he couldn’t help it. 

“I made something as a mini-experiment but, well, I haven’t tested it out yet. I was thinking you could maybe help me out?” 

A mini-experiment? If it was something Tadashi built, it was bound to be good. Reluctantly, Hiro slunk out from under the pillow, worrying his bottom lip subconsciously. He nodded his consent.

Like a switch flicked on inside him, Tadashi brightened immediately. He yanked Hiro’s hand, hard, jerking him off the bed (“Woah! Take it easy, Tadashi!”) and tugged him out of the room and down the old rickety steps, Hiro nearly tripping over his own awkward pre-teen feet on the way. “If this thing works as planned, you’re going to love it!” Tadashi said cheerily, ignoring Hiro’s small cries of protest as he was bustled past the afternoon crowd of customers in the café, out the door, and around the back of the building to the garage.

“Tadashi, wha –”

Tadashi let go of Hiro’s wrist to fling the garage door open. He turned, smiling widely. “Behold the beauty of my project for the last couple weeks!”

Hiro stared disbelievingly.

It’s a shopping cart.

A shopping cart with engines attached, but a shopping cart nonetheless. 

“An … embellished shopping cart!” Hiro said without enthusiasm. “That’s real nice, bro. Points for creativity.”

“It may not look like much, but just wait until you get in.” Tadashi crammed a helmet onto Hiro’s head, bodily tossing the small 13-year-old into the cart, before grabbing a helmet for himself. 

“Wha – we’re supposed to ride this thing?!” Hiro stared incredulously at his brother, who was now clambering into the cart himself, shaking the entire frame dangerously. “Is this even safe?”

Tadashi’s answer was a slightly sadistic grin as he pulled out a small rectangular controller. “Better hold on tight, little bro!”

And suddenly, Hiro was screaming for his life.

He latched on to both sides of the cart, gripping the wire bars with all his strength while screeching garbled expletives at his brother’s broad back. Tadashi laughed before yelling back at him, _“Swear jar, Hiro!”_ as they rocketed out of the garage down a nearby alleyway, scattering garbage cans and cardboard boxes around them like drifting snow.

“Okay, let’s try something new,” Hiro heard Tadashi mutter through the wind that was whistling past his ears. Hiro opened his mouth to question his brother’s sanity, but found the words quickly faded into the cool March air as the cart slowly began to levitate off the ground.

“Oh, okay,” Hiro admitted, feeling the early anxiety fade somewhat, as he stared down as the cart brought the pair higher and higher, until they were zooming along rooftops. “That’s actually kind of cool.”

“Isn’t it?” Tadashi grinned back at him. “I think it could be even better if I actually knew how to steer this thing properly.”

Hiro felt the blood drain from his face, his fingertips suddenly ice-cold. “You _what?!_ ”

It really came to no surprise to anyone when firefighters had to come rescue the two from a nearby Spanish Chestnut tree, the brothers entangled in the offending branches. They were let off with a warning and some very aggravated reprimands from Aunt Cass as they trooped into the café, looking heavily windswept.

It only occurred to Hiro when he was lying in bed later that night, listening to his brother's slow, steady breathing, that Tadashi had been willing to throw weeks of hard work away, just to bring a smile to his face. The older sibling had known the cart wasn’t quite flight ready, that it was so close to completion, but he had willingly thrown it all out the window, all to draw Hiro out of his shell.

Hiro’s chest clenched uncomfortably.

_His nine-hundred and fifth crane is a little crushed and crinkled thanks to Gogo, but it’s okay, he doesn’t mind. He can fix it._

_Gogo had stormed into his private lab – with a key card that she most probably did not produce legally – saying that enough is enough, demanding that he take a step out of his stupid little world that he’s constructed for himself, to take his head out of his ass for one second, that couldn’t he see that Tadashi would not have wanted this –_

_He breaks then. What did she know, he screams, what could she possibly know about Tadashi? He’s dead, he’s not coming back, and his thoughts were long since buried with him in ash._

_He barely notices the rest of the gang hover awkwardly outside the door as the fight quickly escalates into a screaming match. He barely even notices Gogo brush angrily at her red-tinted eyes, wiping away desperately unwanted tears – tears he had never seen the girl succumb to, not once in the entirety of the past 2 years._

_She stops suddenly. Hiro, uncomprehending, follows her gaze past him. His blood runs cold._

_He rushes to the small mountain of painstakingly folded cranes, each one as close to perfect as he could possibly make them. He attempts to cover them with his body, snarling at Gogo to_ get out, _to_ leave him be – 

_She ignores him and picks up the uncompleted beginnings of crane number 905. Hiro sees the understanding begin to dawn in her eyes, and he braces himself for judgement, for bitter, scornful words to rain down upon him, telling him that it was stupid, that it was a waste of time and space, that his one wish could never, ever –_

_All his thoughts screech to a halt as the short girl pulls him into a tight embrace, crushing the crane between them._

_Her hug is awkward, unsure, her body a plane of soft femininity, and she feels nothing like Tadashi. But he’ll take it, he thinks, feeling the familiar prickling behind his eyes as he buries his face into Gogo’s purple-streaked locks._

The days passed like haze, the seconds blurring into minutes, the minutes blurring into hours. He often chose to sit by Tadashi’s bed, its sheets untouched ever since the day of the showcase; if he leaves it alone, sometimes it almost feels like Tadashi will come back in the evening, cracking his back after a long arduous day sat in front of Baymax. (He probably did it on purpose, Hiro mused. Tadashi knows - _knew_ \- he hated the hair-raising sound of bones creaking, and would often throw him a shit-eating grin after he cracked just about every bone in his body.)

He closed his eyes, letting that scent of Tadashi’s wash over him. He didn’t dare lie on the bed itself – he didn’t want to think about the day the smell would wear away, leaving only his memories to break and shatter into dust. 

He sat like that for hours, curled up into the corner with his nose buried in the cold, cold fabric, the hard corners of the nightstand digging into his back. He heard the door creak open slowly, he heard Aunt Cass step in lightly, he heard her soft sigh, her footfalls an intrusive _tap-tap-tap_ as she padded over to replace his plate of untouched food. He waited for her to step out before curling even deeper in on himself.

Sometimes he wondered if it would ever be worth moving again.

Only, he had found light suddenly turning his vision behind his shut eyes a bright red after Aunt Cass’ visit. He groaned, shifting unwillingly as the unwelcome light from the newly opened window assaulted his eyes. He stumbled over to pull down the blinds, before a flash of white caught his eye.

He paused, blinking still from the sudden brightness. Stepping over a stray skateboard that he hadn’t bothered putting away for weeks, he neared the source of his curiosity. His breath hitched.

A paper crane.

Hiro gingerly picked it up by the wing, blowing off the thin layer of dust that had accumulated in its delicate folds. He felt the nostalgia creeping up his throat and collecting behind his eyes, and he cradled the fragile scrap that held lingering memories of Tadashi Hamada to his chest.

He remembered.

1000 paper cranes for a single wish. 

Aunt Cass found him, hours later, hunched over several crumpled sheets of blank white paper as he viciously attempted another lopsided fold. While she was happy that Hiro had at last left Tadashi’s bedside, all she could see was the lonely back of a too-small, too-wretched boy who had almost everything in his life wrenched so suddenly away from him.

_His one thousandth crane is made with slow, gentle hands. It’s been a while since he’d made his last crane; he doesn’t know how he feels about the looming end of his project. He had been looking forward to the end, to the day he could have his wish, but now that it is becoming a reality, he doesn’t know quite what to think._

Hiro takes a step back. His room has long since been covered with cranes, several hundreds of white, faintly glowing birds littering the countertops and the neat, untouched covers of Tadashi’s bed, while others are hanging from the ceiling, as if they are gliding carefree through the empty air where Tadashi would once sit as he pored over his orderly stack of notes, their thin strings rotating slightly.

A thousand cranes.

He can have his wish.

He moves to clasp his hands together, but stills.

Maybe he doesn’t need it.

Maybe some things are better left the way they are.

Swiping out a hard wooden frame from under his bed – kicked there in a fit of anger before crane four hundred eighty-eight – he pulls out a painfully familiar photo. He places the picture of Tadashi – eyes as warm as he had always remembered, a crooked grin gracing his features – on the small oak dresser, and nests it among a crowd of pearly paper cranes. He smiles wistfully, before squatting down to look Tadashi in the eye. “I hope,” he tries hesitantly. He takes a deep breath before trying again. “I hope, wherever you are, that you’re doing well. We miss you a lot. _I_ miss you a lot. But while there’s been a lot of hard times, and a future without you here still seems so hard to imagine, I think maybe, maybe it’d be better for me to let go.” He pauses. “I’ll see you again someday. But until then, I’ll be sure to achieve our dreams for us. So … wait for me, okay?”

He steps away. He hears the faint clamour of guests downstairs, his Aunt’s cheery voice calling out names and orders. With one final sweeping look at his rom, he turns to pad out of the room, breathing a silent goodbye to his brother.

If he strains his ears, he thinks he can hear Tadashi whisper,

_“I’m proud of you, Hiro.”_

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, I've never experienced this grief on a personal level myself, so I'm really sorry if I was off base with the emotions! I wanted to explore more into the whole process though, since we see Hiro going through it only in a pretty brief space of time in the movie.
> 
> (Also quick note, Faction over Blood is coming I swear, I just had to get some of the angst off my chest hue)


End file.
